New Year Opens With A Bang

With three new exchange-traded funds launching in the initial three weeks of 2009, Investor's Business Daily markets reporter Trang Ho explores what could wind up as a very active year for new product introductions.

She notes some 500-plus ETFs and ETNs are still in registration, and takes a look at some of the more interesting prospects for investors. Interestingly, at the story's end, a chart plots product launches versus total assets going back to 1993 using data supplied by Barclays Global Investors.

You can read the story here.

Fuhr: Volatility Behind Popularity of ETFs In 2008

In another IBD story from its monthly special report on ETFs, Ho does a Q&A with BGI's Deborah Fuhr. 

The analyst credits much of last year's record level of net inflows into ETFs—as mutual funds were suffering massive outflows—to volatility and the ease of use along with lower costs of exchange-traded products. 

You can read the story here.

Demand For Gold ETF Strong

This Wall Street Journal  report on the latest in gold prices notes that demand for exchange-traded products tied to the "yellow metal" remains strong.

The article talks about recent ETF figures from ETF Securities, one of the world's largest issuers of exchange-traded products. 

You can read the story here.

Indexes Are To Blame

We've followed Eric Oberg's recent contributions to TheStreet.com. Namely, his excellent rendering of the math behind why inverse and leveraged ETF returns can seem so out of whack spawned a wholesale flight to copy the idea by almost every major media outlet we regularly keep an eye on in the U.S. 

But his latest is more intuitive than in-depth and detailed. There's no doubt Oberg has a way with words, though. The story's main headline and subheadline on the site says it all: "When Capitalism Ate Itself: When indices become more important than individual stocks, markets lose a primary function."

You can read the story here.